“Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing?”

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 14e

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Ludwig Wittgenstein228

Austrian-British philosopher 1889–1951

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: God of the Oppressed (1975, 1997), p. 46

“Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

"Emotions", p. 36.
The Second Sin (1973)

“The ability to read becomes devalued when what one has learned to read adds nothing of importance to one's life.”

Bruno Bettelheim (1903–1990) child psychologist and writer

“What is the point of all this violence? Nothing is being proven, nothing is being won. Just a massive waste of life. God help us. Love>death”

Amy Lee (1981) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Amy Lee on Twitter

“What’s the point of history, if it has nothing to say to the present?”

Justina Robson book Natural History

Source: Natural History (2003), Chapter 5 “Ancient History” (p. 56)

“In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“The strongest argument proves nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience.”
[H]aec vocatur scientia experimentalis, quae negligit argumenta, quoniam non certificant, quantumcunque sint fortia, nisi simul adsit experientia conclusionis. Et ideo haec docet experiri conclusiones nobiles omnium scientiarum, quae in aliis scientiis aut probantur per argumenta, aut investigantur per experientias naturales et imperfectas...

Roger Bacon book Opus Tertium

OQHI, 43 http://www.mlat.uzh.ch/MLS/text.php?tabelle=Rogerus_Baco_cps4&rumpfid=Rogerus_Baco_cps4,%20Opus%20tertium,%20%2013&level=3&corpus=4&lang=0&current_title=Opus%20tertium&links=&inframe=1&hide_apparatus= as cited in: James J. Walsch (1911) """"Science at the Medieval Universities"""" in: Popular Science, May 1911, p. 449 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Popular_Science_Monthly_Volume_78.djvu/459 <br class="br">Opus Tertium, c. 1267 <br class="br">Context: The strongest argument proves nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences, and the goal of all speculation.

“Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Each and All
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.

“Analogies prove nothing, that is quite true, but they can make one feel more at home.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

1930s, "New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis" https://books.google.com/books/about/New_Introductory_Lectures_on_Psycho_anal.html?id=hIqaep1qKRYC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false (1933)

“To me, it has always been a matter of wonder that Christ said nothing as to the obligation man is under to his country, nothing as to the rights of the people as against the wish and will of kings, nothing against the frightful system of human slavery—almost universal in his time. What he did not say is altogether more wonderful than what he did say. It is marvelous that he said nothing upon the subject of intemperance, nothing about education, nothing about philosophy, nothing about nature, nothing about art. He said nothing in favor of the home, except to offer a reward to those who would desert their wives and families.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)

“Reading the Socratic dialogues one has the feeling: what a frightful waste of time! What's the point of these arguments that prove nothing and clarify nothing?”

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Ludwig Wittgenstein228

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